“I missed you too,” he mumbles.
I already dread the day he leaves.
“I’m so glad you came,” I say feeling oddly emotional.
He grabs the back of my neck and pulls me toward him until our foreheads are touching. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world, Shakespeare.”
I have to swallow down the stinging emotion building in my throat, quickly sniffling away any tears as he releases me.
“Let’s go get drunk,” I say with a smile, which has him cheering with excitement.
“That’s what I’m bloody talking about!”
* * *
Declan and I decide to skip the bars tonight and drink at theplace I rented instead. It’s a condo right on the beach, so we take a six-pack of beer and a bottle of whiskey down on the sand and get drunk with our feet in the water.
He’s wearing nothing but a tight pair of black shorts, and I can’t stop staring at his abs and chest. Declan has always had a fit body, but his twenties have treated him very nice. I feel like I have to work my ass off in the gym and keep a strict diet to maintain my physique, which isn’t all that impressive to begin with.
“I can’t believe you live in LA,” he says as he lies on his back and stares up at the stars.
The beach is quiet tonight, so it’s just us, and we’re mostly hidden by the jetty of rocks and plants from the houses on the shore.
I feel restless. I’m tired of waiting. I want to know this week if things between us are going to progress. I still want Declan to be my first, but if he doesn’t want that, I need to know now. I can’t be a virgin forever.
“I can’t believe you came to visit me,” I say as I shove his bare shoulder.
“What? You think I’d miss this?” he replies. “Shakespeare, there isn’t a place on this earth you could go that I wouldn’t come to.”
Everything gets quiet after he says that. I pick at the sand with nothing but the waves crashing to fill the void. I honestly wonder if he means what it feels like he means when he says stuff like that.
After a few tense moments, he turns toward me. “You’re my best friend, and I made a promise.Wemade a promise.”
“No one’s ever kept their promise to me before,” I mumble quietly. It’s a vulnerable thing to say, but this is Declan. I don’t have to worry with him. Nothing I say is a risk like it is with others.
“Yeah, me neither,” he replies under his breath.
It gets quiet again, and I feel like I’m crawling out of my skin. Just as I’m about to say something or bring up this topic that seems to be hovering awkwardly around us, he starts first.
“So you got an American boyfriend yet?”
My head snaps in his direction. “No,” I blurt out. “I don’t have any boyfriend.”
“Oh, come on,” he says. “You must have hot guys crawling all over you here.”
I scoff. “I don’t.”
“Nothing?” he asks.
Biting my lip, I look away. His gaze bores into me as I avoid his eye contact.
“I can see it on your face!” he shouts with a laugh. “Who was it?”
I shrug casually. “I hooked up a couple of times. That’s all.”
“Hooked up?” he asks, teasing me about my American slang. “What kind ofhooking up?”
I turn toward him and try to bite back my smile. “I got a hand job at a New Year’s party.”
